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I was visiting YLE (Finnish National Broadcasting Company) Social Media Workshop meeting again this morning. This time I was asked to talk about the Office Nomad concept.

The whole event was a great experience and the concept got lot of interesting (IMO good) feedback. We had some very deep discussions on different roles people have on social media (private-professional-business – thanks Christina Forsgård) and how it relates to the journalistic work role.

Here’s the presentation I gave on my Office Nomad experiences (in Finnish Only – English coming later)

More news in the Office Nomad front. I have now confirmed January and February 2010 host companies.

February host is Arc Technology, an ABB– and Ruukki-owned company. I know the company and some people from there, but I guess the offering has evolved from what I remember. Looking forward to see how this heavy industry specialist will operate.

And then there is the January 2010 host company. It has been confirmed, but we will take some time before the announcement. I believe it will be an interesting one for me and for them. I’ll let you know.

Also, new potential hosts are appearing. I got today three new ones, expecting to come into some sort of agreement within couple of weeks.

This looks a bit like it’s gonna get crowded soon. Luckily there will be more Office Nomads soon.

It’s been a while since I last updated you on Office Nomad news. This is the latest.

Spending the month of September with Netprofile was a very interesting one. I felt like working in family environment and learned a lot. Being able to contribute my part by extending my thoughts on the future of PR and social media was a really exciting thing. I was honored by having a possibility to attend their planning day as a fly in the ceiling.

Thanks to everyone at Netprofile!

This busy month I’ve been sitting at White Sheep, a digital agency within Aegis group. I’ve felt instant belonging here as well. Refreshing, different type group of professionals is what I’m experiencing here. Maybe some internal stuff is still going to happen during this last week of the month.

New host booking for December 2009 is Dazzle. This is an interesting host, something different from any of the previous ones.

Last week I was informed by @aku in Qaiku about onizou Idea Nomads visiting Helsinki. I wrote them a mail, and soon we had a meeting arranged.

The meeting took place at Netprofile office (yep, Office Nomad host this month) and was a bit special since there was no agenda for the meeting. It was not a problem though.

The discussion was lively, it was such exciting to hear about how onizou had studied both urban nomadism and true nomads during their journey. Gladly onizou had lot of interest in the officenomadism and open organization thinking. This was a discussion that brought me many new ideas for both officenomadism and also Ekana way of working.

After the meeting we continued to browse the city for some design, electronics and more coffee. Oh, and helped onizou to get connected with some more people.

I really enjoyed the meeting today and hope to start some new cool projects with onizou in the future.

To get an idea about the people behind the idea nomads, you can check out the video we recorded today.

Everyplay, a Finnish social gaming startup, revealed today a new Facebook social game called Kamu World.

I tried it right away and it feels really addictive.

Getting started is really easy. Kamu World is a FB application, so you really have almost nothing to do. Just go to www.kamuworld.com or do a search on FB with keyword “kamu world”.

Once you get in, you are being asked couple of simple questions and you are ready to go. You can choose a name and skin for your “buddy”.

In the actual game you hang in one of the rooms that are located around the world. There you can chat, do different tricks or emoticons, get new friends, and give other buddies “thums up”.

Soon you will find that others have skins and emoticons that you don’t. That’s because they are on a higher level than you. You can gain levels by gathering “sparks” or points you get from being active member in the crowd.

What’s great about this is that the game is linked to your Facebook profile, so you can allow people to see who you really are.

For future reference, this combination of ease of use, distributed credentials, Facebook integration and clever use of avatars will open totally new worlds.

Everyplay is a developer and publisher of social games. Social games are fun, casual games played together with your friends on social network such as Facebook and MySpace.

Everyplay was founded in year 2008 by veterans of game development and social media. The founding team consists of:

Jussi Laakkonen, CEO & founder

Jussi is a seasoned game industry executive and entrepreneur. Prior to founding Everyplay he was in charge of business development for racing game developer Bugbear Entertainment. Jussi has together with Pekka Aakko led ASSEMBLY, one of the world’s largest computer festivals since year 1992. Jussi has previously worked at steering group level at data security company F-Secure and co-founded Eworks, a multimedia startup in the 1990s.

Pekka Aakko, business development director & co-founder

Pekka is a veteran IT industry executive with key expertise in partnerships, sales and R&D. He most recently worked as a director at Logica. Together with Jussi Laakkonen Pekka has led ASSEMBLY’s growth to a national institution that attracts over 8000 festival visitors in two annual events. Pekka was also founder of Internet Finland, one of the first private held ISPs in Finland. Pekka also founded with Jussi Laakkonen Eworks Finland. He also was an early pioneer in online games as the chairman of BATmud, one of the earliest and most successful still running MMOs in the world.

Jalmari Raippalinna, CTO & co-founder

Jalmari is a pioneer in high end Flash game and rich media development. As a senior developer at Apaja Online Entertainment, he led the creation of the Playforia virtual world. Prior to Apaja, he worked at Sulake, the makers of Habbo Hotel. Jalmari’s cutting edge Flash skills have been demonstrated in award winning Flash demos created in the Evoflash group.

Matti Savolainen, Server lead & co-founder

Matti is a senior developer of highly scaleable, rich media systems. He was instrumental to developing the backend systems Finland’s largest social network IRC-Galleria used to scale to 500 000 users and over 4 billion page loads a month. He has also been a programmer in a various indie game projects.

My Facebook account has lately been bombed with several invitations by consumer brands. I’ve been promised free food or trip to the factory. If I win the lottery, that is.

You know what? That’s so web1.0.

There are million competitions you could enter. And some people do participate. But they don’t care about your brand. They just try their luck.

And what does your brand get? Contacts for DM? Maybe. Good tools for irritating the consumers. And for arranging more competitions.

In Facebook and other social media networks your brand MUST ENGAGE with the consumer. Competition can be engaging, but you need to do it right. Make consumers CONTRIBUTE, make them SHARE and RECOMMEND. Give them CONTENT they are interested in.

Please don’t think consumers are stupid. Giving out 10kilos of porridge every day will kick back. Instead, make them design and share best porridge recipies and vote the best consumer product. And for the winners, make the winning porridge a part of your product line and invite winning voters to experience the making of porridge with a porridge celeb. Vid and share the whole process.

I hate it how marketing people are buying these old school marketing process “innovations”. They are so waste of money.

It’s been a bit slow on the communications front lately. Not to worry, we’ve just been out enjoying the summer and starting new things.

June 12th was the day when the Finnish game industry companies located in K30 (Kalevankatu 30) complex had their summer party. K30 summer party had Mahtava Development, Mr. Goodliving, Recoil Games, Housemarque and Sauma as organizers.

It was a great party with all the hot names in gaming present. A big thanks to the organizers!

I used the opportunity to talk to some interesting people. Here are the three videos:

Teppo Kotirinta of NordKapp. Teppo talks about the company, co-op with IDEO and his views on the future.

Yes, this is great news. Today I visited the office of Veen Waters, the real design water brand of Finland. We agreed that the office nomad will be working with them for the month of November.

I’ve been following the story of Veen from the beginning, and I’ve admired the touch and drive these people have. They are not afraid of any established player or authority. They are doing things their way.

Our talks have been very, very exciting, and I believe there will be some very special things happening during that month.

I am a believer of good design, thus having unopened bottles of the original Veen 66 by Antti Eklund and Long John 33, both from the first production patches.

I just had a meeting with Markus Grannenfelt, the CEO of White Sheep. We agreed that I will spend the month of October 2009 in their offices.

This is a special Office Nomad case, since it’s the first ever company that I have no prior relations to in any way. I’m really looking forward to experience this group of professionals.

This is what they say about themselves:

White Sheep is an award winning innovation-led digital agency whose core focus is building brand preference through experiences that engage people. We thrive on questioning the conventional and innovating new solutions for visibility and communications.

More on White Sheep in October!

At this point, I have openings still for August, November and December of 2009. I am talking with number of companies already, but it’s the fastest who will have priority… ;-)

Today’s great news is that Veenwaters, a Finnish design bottled water brand, will be sold exclusively in England at Harrods Knightsbridge. Veenwaters’ new 0,33l new bottle VEEN Long John 33 will be the only water sold at all of Harrods restaurants and Harrods Food Halls.

This is really a remarkable news for a small Finnish company that launched their first design water just under two years ago. Veenwaters’ first bottle, designed by Antti Eklund, have won numerous awards icluding “The Good Design” award.

I had a chat with their CEO Tomi Grönfors last week, and there are so many good things coming from there.

Attaching the whole press release here, read yourself.

HARRODS CHOOSES ‘VEEN’ AS HOUSE BRAND
Harrods has chosen VEEN as its house water brand. A brand new, smaller 0,33L edition will recieve its global launch at the world famous department store later this month. The award winning
spring water will be available in the store’s restaurants in the designer 0.33l and 0,66L bottles, as well as continuing to retail exclusively in the Food Halls.

Exceptional taste and quality
VEEN comes from a free flowing spring in the natural wilderness of Finnish Lapland, one of the least populated areas of Europe, resulting in exceptionally low nitrate levels. The low minerality
in the Lappish soil creates a unique, smooth taste. “VEEN’s smooth taste pairs well with excellent food and wine, we are delighted that diners at Harrods restaurants will now be able to appreciate the match.” Says Tomi Grönfors the MD of VEEN Waters Finland Ltd.
VEEN LongJohn
The crystal clear Extra Flint Glass was the natural choice for VEEN bottles to protect the taste and quality of the water as well as to ensure recyclability for sustainable product development. The clear Scandinavian design form of the new LongJohns bottle is a brand signature, with the ”LongJohn” embossing bringing a contemporary twist. The name comes from the design’s continuous wallpaper pattern that resembles the classic underwear design used in Finland.
The bottle is created and manufactured in close co-operation with Owens-Illinois.

VEEN Waters Finland Oy
VEEN Waters Finland Lts. is a privately owned company located in the town of Ylitornio in Finnish Lapland. The company was established 2006 December. VEEN is sold worldwide in selected outlets. VEEN Waters Finland Ltd, is a marketing, development and production company that is challenging the big multi-nationals with entrepreneurial spirit and Finnish flair.